Q400 Mr Jones: But do you not actually
think that, if we go ahead with this proposal in terms of the
independent panel, one person, that is not going to satisfy general
public opinion or a lot of the people we have interviewed who
frankly used the chain of command and got to certain blocks in
the chain of command where the quite serious allegations they
were making were either ignored or sometimes just swept under
the carpet?

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
I would contend that things are not swept under the carpet. That
is the point and that is what the Bill is making sure is not happening,
that people know that there is this new redress system, that people
do have access to it and they will feel confident that it works
and, when appropriate, it will have an independent member.

Q401 Mr Jones: What makes you different,
for example, from the police who for many years were arguing that
you could not have an independent police complaints procedure,
but now it is taken for granted and, even more than that, when
we took evidence on the last Defence Committee, many of the chief
constables who were now scrutinised by it said that it has actually
helped in terms of their operational effectiveness?

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
I think we are a different structure of organisation and we have
different objectives and aims from the police force's, so I do
not think we can be compared. It is all very well to cross-relate
everything that happens elsewhere to us, and I agree that we should
go for best practice, but what I think is that there is a debate
to be had here and there will be a discussion about what the nature
of that independence should be. My views are what I have given
you and I think they will be satisfactory and people will have
confidence.

Mr Jones: There are amendments coming
forward too.

Q402 Mr Howarth: General, much has
been made of the importance of understanding the context in which
military operations occur. As a counterweight to Mr Jones' argument,
may I put it to you that, if there were an independent element,
that independent element might command the confidence of the public,
but not the confidence of the Armed Forces because that independent
element may be unable to understand the context of the military?
Would you feel that that would be a fair assessment?

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
if he was doing it entirely on his own, I think that is true,
but I think what we are talking about here is a panel on which
there is an independent member who would have people around him
who did understand the context and be able to consider the thing
jointly.

Q403 Mr Howarth: So what kind of
person would you, as Chief of the Defence Staff, recommend to
the Secretary of State ought to be the kind of person appointed
as that independent element?

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
clearly somebody who has an understanding of legal issues more
widely, somebody who understands, if you like, the separate context
in which the Armed Services have to operate and the unique nature
of our business, but again somebody who is open-minded enough
to know that there are certain sorts of characteristics to a professional
life, such as ours, which he would be able to put and calibrate
in any decisions he was making.

Mr Key: General, my colleague, George
Howarth, presents his apologies for absence. He is the proper
Chairman of this Committee and he has been called away on urgent
business. He received a letter, which has been circulated to members
of the Committee, from a remarkable website called `forceshelpline.com'
who have had over five million hits on their website and which
seeks to provide advice, in no sense anti-military, but of course
that is not all; there have been suggestions that there should
be the formation of an Armed Forces Federation.

Q404 Jim Sheridan: I am just following
on from the pragmatic and progressive questioning from Mr Jones.
Do you think that there is a role for the Armed Forces Federation
and, if so, what would that really be and, if not, why not?

General Sir Michael Walker: The
answer is I do not because I do not think that the people in the
Armed Services would be best served by that. I have long believed
that one of the things that serves us best in looking at our conditions
and terms of service is the Armed Forces Pay Review Body. They
have served us extraordinarily well over the years and that has
taken care of, in my view, the terms and conditions of service
which are often the biggest cause of grievance for federations.
The second reason is that actually that is what the chain of command
is about. If you want to start diminishing, if you want to start
breaking down the chain of command, it is by bringing in other
bodies that people can refer to outside. What we have got to make
sure of, and I do not claim that we are completely blameless in
all of these areas, is that the chain of command works as well
as it is designed to as part of the process.

Q405 Jim Sheridan: Do you say, therefore,
that an Armed Forces Federation would be a threat to the chain
of command?

General Sir Michael Walker: Yes,
I do think it would be something that weakened the chain of command.

Q406 Jim Sheridan: I come from a
trade union background and I remember, not personally, but I read,
that some 100 years ago people used to share that view, that we
did not need trade unions because we had this altruistic view
of life and your employer would look after you, but that has now
changed and moved on. Would you, therefore, consider balloting
the Armed Forces and letting them decide whether or not they want
a federation?

General Sir Michael Walker: No,
I would not. We are beginning to get into a realm which is, to
my view, a ridiculous one. We do, for example, have continuous
attitude surveys which go round and we put out questionnaires
to get people's views. If we had a set of Armed Services that
reacted to every whim of every influential group in it, we would
get nowhere in delivering military capability for this country,
so I believe that the chain of command must do that business.
The Armed Forces Pay Review Body does look after the conditions
and pay concerns and we would certainly lose the AFPRB and I am
not sure we would get as much attention from the Government in
terms of rewarding people.

Q407 Jim Sheridan: Are you suggesting
that the Americans and the Australians have got it wrong as well?

General Sir Michael Walker: They
may have something that is appropriate for their sets of armed
forces. Certainly we are different from both of those and I would
not want to be either described as a member of the American Armed
Forces or the Australians'; I think we have a better system.

Q408 Jim Sheridan: Just for the sake
of the record, you would veto, you personally would veto any move
whatsoever to an Armed Forces Federation?

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
it is not like that. The Chief of the Defence Staff does not veto
of course. I would vote against it if I was given a vote, yes.

Q409 Jim Sheridan: So you are in
favour of a vote then?

General Sir Michael Walker: I
am not in favour of a vote, no.

Q410 Mr Jones: I think the Dutch
Armed Forces, for example, have, I do not know what it is called,
a trade union, a federation, and I have met some of them. Some
of the Dutch marines actually work very closely, and actually
integrate, with our Royal Marines. If you have got a Dutch marine
and a UK marine working side by side, what is the difference between
the two?

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
they are very different. The ethos is very different. We work
side by side with 36 nations out in places like Afghanistan and
the Balkans and so on. Of course we are very different and we
recognise those differences. We need to recognise that the way
we run our business is very different from the way other people
do. Let me give you an example. When I was commanding in Bosnia,
one of the battalions of one of the nations, and I will not tell
you which one, laid down its arms because, it said, the pay deal
was not right, so they put their arms down. Do you really see
British Armed Services doing that? That is the sort of trouble
you get into when there is a representative body who are fighting
back at home, your soldiers are at the front and they do not appear
to be achieving.

Q411 Mr Jones: That is not what is
being proposed by a federation. Surely it is actually about a
course of redress and, in terms of the situation you describe,
I certainly would not be in favour of a trade union if it could
down arms, but there is a real issue, is there not, that people
do need representation not just in terms of disputes with the
chain of command, but I looked up this latest case in Iraq where
quite clearly, and it has been investigated, those soldiers have
got perhaps to go through some system, so surely they should have
some recourse to some independent process which actually supports
those people who are accused possibly of doing this? Do you not
think we ought actually to look at it as a way of helping people
who find not just disputes with the chain of command, but also

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
there is an independent system. The legal support that people
get in these circumstances is independent of the chain of command.

Q412 Mr Jones: Perception-wise it
is not, is it, because it is still MoD?

General Sir Michael Walker: But
we want to deal with the reality rather than the perception. Now,
if you are saying that we should do all these things just to change
the perception, I am not sure that is the right basis on which
to make those decisions.

Q413 Mr Jones: Well, no, but you
have got to recognise that society has changed, General, and,
I am sorry, it is going to come sooner or later to the Armed Forces
and the MoD that it is not a goldfish bowl which is actually separate
from the rest of society.

General Sir Michael Walker: No,
I accept that entirely.

Q414 Mr Jones: The problem you have
got coming which has actually been raised is the issue about recruitment.
People are not going to join you and we have got competition now
with this tight labour market, so they are not going to join the
Armed Forces if they are going to be treated under some 19th Century
set of rules.

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
Mr Jones, I am sorry, I think you must have a very warped idea
of how people in the Armed Services view their profession at the
moment. They are not treated like that, they are treated in a
modern manner. That is exactly what this Bill is about, to make
it modern, to make it 21st Century and to provide the sort of
processes that do allow people to have confidence in the process.

Q415 Mr Jones: I have just had it
from you and also from the Chief of Staff last week that finally
you are going to say nice words about this in terms of you want
it, but really you do not want this, do you?

General Sir Michael Walker: We
do.

Q416 Mr Jones: It is us politicians
interfering?

General Sir Michael Walker: Absolutely
not. What are you talking aboutthe Bill?

Q417 Mr Jones: Yes.

General Sir Michael Walker: No,
we absolutely want it.

Q418 Mr Jones: Really you do not
want us interfering at all, do you?

General Sir Michael Walker: I
am sorry, you are making allegations which you cannot substantiate.
You are as bad as the people you are complaining are creating
unnecessary

Q419 Mr Jones: Well, no doubt you
and the other chiefs of defence staff, and we had one last week,
are really just living in a time-warp.

General Sir Michael Walker: Well,
that must be your perception, but I have to tell you we are certainly
not living in time-warps. If you look at the modernisational change
the Armed Forces have gone through in the last 10 years, no other
commercial business or industry has had to go through so much
change, so I refute your allegation absolutely.